Elders Express: How about this diet? Learn to cook

Published 5:25 pm, Friday, March 7, 2014

SAN ANTONIO — The Internet headline was an eye-opener. Ukrainian model and “human Barbie” Valeria Lukyanova claimed that she is a “Breatharian” who doesn't need food or water and that she hadn't eaten for several weeks.

Ever curious about new diets, I attempted to read the story in the Huffington Post but got an ad for a hair product. My hair is not fat, so it was not the information I sought. Trying to get details, I accidentally clicked off the Internet. So I decided to wait for details from other news sources that likely would expose more than her Barbie-sized midriff. If her story were in “Ripley's Believe It or Not,” I'd say “NOT!”

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Although I'm seldom surprised at what people choose to do, I'll never cease to wonder why. Getting publicity, being immortalized by getting into the Guinness World Records or “Ripley's Believe it or Not” are obvious reasons.

Some weirdness is practical (well, sort of), like the guy whose cookbook featured recipes for preparing “road kill.” He claimed it was good free food. Knowing I'd never be invited to his house for dinner, I had no problem with his taste for “sail-frogs” and unidentifiable dead furry critters found on the highway. (Note: An old Texan explained sail-frogs to me as frogs found on highways that lost their races with car tires and got dried flat by the sun. Sorry if this information ruined your breakfast.)

I've written many columns about dreading my childhood Thanksgiving dinners because my mother said I would hurt Auntie Hertha's feelings if I didn't eat her over-boiled, gray-green mushy balls of bitter leaves named Brussels sprouts. I tried campaigning to keep them off our country's holiday dinner tables claiming that because they were called Brussels sprouts, they were un-American.

A recent “Ripley's Believe It or Not” revealed that half of all people are genetically programmed to dislike the taste of Brussels sprouts. I doubt that factoid would've impressed my mother. Also, I wonder if Valeria the Breatharian was forced to eat Brussels sprouts as a child.

Wanting publicity, road-kill dining and being force-fed overcooked Brussels sprouts are not the only things that could lead to breatharianism. If Valeria the Breatharian watched daytime television in this country, she'd have good reason to stop eating. TV doctors say coffee is bad and then say it's good. They promoted eating lots of green leafy kale in salads, pulverized in cleansing smoothies and baked for chip snacks until recently when we were cautioned to avoid too much kale.

Brussels sprouts are considered good for you — for now — and delicious if properly cooked. We are fed advice on eating (or not) this food or that herb, or adding super-nutrition powders to beverages or foods, previously said to be nutritious on their own.

Perhaps we should just take a deep breath, turn off the TV, avoid reading foodie stories, and go to a farmers market or grocery veggie aisle, fill a basket with good stuff and enjoy! Also, learn to cook.